Data shows Marin economic recovery investment needs
According to most economists, including Robert Eyler, the Marin Economic Forum’s chief economist, the nation has moved from “recession” to “recovery.”
That may be the case in
Marin County, where unemployment has dropped to 5.4% from a peak of 11.2% in April and is among the lowest in California. But a closer look at the data shows the pandemic has created differing circumstances in the business sector and across the resident population, suggesting that our recovery will need to be targeted and purposeful.
The first and most obvious group affected are small businesses. Remember that more than 75% of all businesses in Marin County have nine employees or fewer and, within that group, more than 40% have between one and four employees.
Many of these businesses are concentrated in the personal services sector, meaning they have been subject to government shutdowns and in many cases unable to operate. Fortunately, the needs of this group are well known, and they have a strong group of advocates, from chamber of commerce organizations to the county’s Economic Recovery Task Force.
Supporting recovery for our small businesses must include financial support and community support (shop local), as well as a productive (and empathetic) working relationship with regulators at the city and county level to adapt to a new consumer environment.
There are two groups of residents also deeply affected by the pandemic who remain critical to our recovery. The first group are Marin’s lower-income residents, many of whom fill our “essential jobs.” A recent publication by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) showed that rates of unemployment from coronavirus in California range from 25% to 30% for families with incomes under $30,000, compared to 5% to 10% for families with incomes above $150,000. Income data for
Marin will always be skewed by a large concentration of highincome earners, but according to the most recent Census data, almost 23% of households in Marin have incomes of $50,000 or less.
What is more concerning about the findings of the PPIC report was that, based on the last recession (2008), low-income families in the Bay Area took on average 11 years to recover versus just five years for high-income families.
The report also confirms that income inequality widened following the last four recessions in California, suggesting the same phenomena could occur this time as well. Interventions that provide a pathway to regain employment or preferably better employment for our low-income population should be fundamental to any recovery plans.
The second group is women. Nationally, 11.5 million women lost their jobs between February-May compared to just 9 million men. Hispanic women experienced the steepest decline in unemployment at 21%. These figures led people to label the recession of 2020 a “shecession” in acknowledgement that women were more deeply affected.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell cited women’s unemployment as a concern to national economic recovery. Women make up a large proportion of employment in personal services jobs. Those jobs have declined 60% in Marin County since 2019. Especially hard hit were nail and hair salons, primarily owned by women residents of Marin.
Many women professionals had to “opt out” of working to care for school-age children. At the national level, hard-earned gains among professional women in terms of salaries and promotions are at risk the longer they stay home. Getting women back to work is not simply a function of job openings; hard issues like caring for children or elderly parents and overcoming career interruptions need to be considered.
Around the Bay Area, counties are developing economic recovery strategies that fit the needs of their residents and economy, and Marin will do the same. As we do so, recognizing where the pain points are and who they affect will be an important influence of what those strategies will be.
Supporting recovery for our small businesses must include financial support and community support (shop local), as well as a productive (and empathetic) working relationship with regulators at the city and county level to adapt to a new consumer environment.